A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [65]
“There was no suggestion of illness or impairment in the courtroom.”
“According to Raleigh, it was a sudden death. Sunderland’s heart simply stopped. He was sitting at his desk dictating letters to his clerk, and between one word and the next, he was gone.” Brereton took out his watch and peered at it intently, as if having trouble reading it. “Another half hour before the doctor’s likely to be up!” He put the watch away carefully. “The truth is, the man you saw at the dinner party is a far cry from what he once was. Raleigh has lost the edge that made him a superb barrister. He probably wishes he could die as swiftly as Sunderland did. In all likelihood, he won’t live out the winter.”
“It’s sad to watch a man deteriorate,” Rutledge agreed.
“It’s Bella I worry about. She’s going to wear herself into illness if she isn’t careful. And he doesn’t seem to notice. Or to care.”
“There’s a self-centeredness in dying,” Rutledge pointed out.
Brereton looked up at him. “So there is in blindness, too. The difference is in age. And perspective. I’ve still much of my life ahead of me, and I don’t fancy spending it tapping along the pavement with a cane!” He said restively, “I must go. Bella—Mrs. Masters—will be anxious. I may be able to persuade Dr. Pugh to let me in.”
He stood and looked around for the girl who had served him, then went to the kitchen door to call to her. After settling his account, he came back to the table. “I live in the cottage just down the road from the Masterses’ house. If you find yourself in the neighborhood, stop and have a drink with me.”
Rutledge thanked him and, after Brereton had gone, finished his own tea. But it was still too early to call on Elizabeth Mayhew, and when the serving girl came back to clear the table, he ordered his usual breakfast.
By that time the other guests in the hotel began to arrive, and the room took on new life as voices filled the spaces. He sat by the window, watching the street come to life as well, as carts moved among the shops, bringing in chickens and cabbages and beets and loaves of bread fresh from the bakery. A small cart filled with baskets of apples rolled past, the farmer’s cheeks as round and red as his wares, his bald pate gleaming in the first rays of the late-rising sun. Through the glass, Rutledge could hear the clock in the church tower strike the hour faintly. Brereton, driving out of Marling, was hunched over the wheel, intent on avoiding an accident.
How had Brereton felt about the murdered ex-soldiers? Rutledge wondered. Had he understood their suffering better than most, and felt the irony of their death in a peaceful country finished with war? Or had he secretly envied them their quiet and painless end?
Hamish said, “He isna’ blind yet. Ask him in five years.”
Which was more to the point.
His breakfast finished, Rutledge set out to do what had been on his mind since dawn.
Elizabeth Mayhew was surprised to see him at this hour, but he apologized with the reminder that he was in Marling on Yard business.
“You’ve lived here since well before the war,” he said as he followed her into the small reception room off the entry hall. “Do you remember hearing of a Jimsy Ridger?”
She frowned. “The name isn’t familiar at all. Richard would have known. He knew better than most what went on. He had deep roots here. People talked to him, confided in him.” She looked around her at the comfortable room, her home since her marriage. “I’m considering selling up. There are no children to inherit. I might as well let the house go to someone who can keep it as Richard would have wished.”
Startled, he said, “But it’s been in his family for—what? Seven generations, at the least!”
“I know. There’s a cousin somewhere. Out in Kenya, I think, if he’s still alive. A remittance man. I’m not sure Richard would have liked the idea of his inheriting.